Tokyo. The epic thriller of the year (Bantam Press) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Tokyo is another of Mo Hayder's deliciously chilling criminal outings, but probably won't produce the frisson of disapproval that such novels as Birdman and The Treatment did. The days are gone when Hayder was identified as one of a cadre of women writers who did something totally unacceptable: produce grisly crime novels quite as unsettling as the products of male imagination. People seem to have finally accepted that the tough crime novel needn't be an exclusively male preserve.

Her troubled female protagonist in Tokyo is Grey, haunting the thronging streets of Tokyo in search of an elusive piece of film recording the infamous Nanking massacre of 1937. But did the film ever exist? The past is a touchy subject for Grey, with incidents in her own life that she has not yet come to terms with. She ill-advisedly becomes a hostess in a nightclub where the clientele is a tad unsavoury (another example of Hayder utilising real-life crime for her plots, with the echoes of a recent murder case). And Grey finds a lead to her quest: a taciturn survivor of the massacre who is now an academic, with no time for the woman pestering him. But Grey makes progress with him--until she encounters a powerful Godfather figure and his violent associates, with a clandestine source for his well-being a much sought-after elixir. Soon, Grey's life becomes two things: very complicated and a place of considerable danger.

The change of locale for Mo Hayder here has ensured that the imaginative energy of her earlier books is consolidated, as is the rejection of the now hackneyed serial killer plot. Atmosphere is brilliantly sustained, set pieces are pulse-racing, and (most satisfying of all) Grey is a truly complex and damaged heroine, the perfect conduit for the reader through this dark world. --Barry Forshaw -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

Compelling thriller set in the Japanese capital. A student travels to Tokyo with the intention of investigating a notorious massacre but she is lured into a world of violence and sexual tension. Hayder is the author of the acclaimed novels: "Birdman" and "The Treatment", both "Sunday Times" bestsellers. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

Student Grey Hutchins has come to Tokyo because of an obsession. Vulnerable and on the edge, she is searching for a fragment of film supposedly taken during the notorious Nanking Massacre in 1937 when the Japanese murdered 300,000 civilians. Some say the film doesn't exist. The only man who can help is a survivor of the Massacre. Immersed in his books and wary of strangers, this man will at first have nothing to do with Grey. Increasingly desperate, she accepts a hostess job at an exclusive nightspot catering for businessmen and gangsters, and it is here she comes to the attention of one particular man. Ancient, wheel-chair bound and guarded by a terrifying nurse, it is rumoured he relies on a strange elixir for his continued well-being - an elixir others want, at any price...With its heady atmosphere of overt violence, lurking fear and sexual tension, "Tokyo" grabs the reader and refuses to let go until its shattering final pages.

Mo Hayder verließ mit fünfzehn ihr Zuhause, um in London das Abenteuer zu suchen. Sie arbeitete in Bars und Kneipen, heiratete, zog nach Japan und jobbte eine Weile in Tokio, wo sie auch für eine englische Zeitung schrieb. Später bereiste sie weite Teile Asiens und absolvierte anschließend ein Studium an einer amerikanischen Filmhochschule. Mo Hayder lebt heute als freie Schriftstellerin in London.